PSB songs that have been used in TV commercials
1. It's Alright
The Introspective rendition of this Sterling Void dance classic was used in an advertisement for the Ford Focus autombile that aired in the United States during the year 2000.
2. Shopping
It was, perhaps, inevitable. In early 2013, several different commercials aired in the U.K. for the Tesco grocery/merchandising chain using this early Pet Shop Boys track. The fact that the song actually has nothing at all to do with "shopping" in the usual sense is lost on most people. But it sure sounds as though it does, which is good enough. Besides, they just can't resist that insistently catchy chorus.
Although a number of TV commercials have employed music strongly influenced by the Pet Shop Boys' first big hit (such as some for the soft drink Sprite that aired in the late 1980s), the first that I'm aware of that is a direct "musical quotation"—of course featuring that unmistakable bassline—aired in 2005 for Denmark's largest bank, Danske Bank. Then, starting in April 2022, the Boys themselves and “West End Girls” figured in a new campaign by Calvin Klein and Palace to promote their collaborative sportswear and fragrance brand CK1 Palace.
4. Pandemonium
A 2010 commercial for a Spanish-language branch of the E! Entertainment television network (probably E! Latinoamérica) features not only this song playing as a vivacious young woman hops out of bed and gets ready for the day but also a big PSB Yes poster on the wall of her bedroom. Cool!
5. Se A Vida É (That's the Way Life Is)
- An advertisement in 2008 for Bank Leumi (National Bank) in Israel featured this song, although not performed—at least not wholly—by the Pet Shop Boys. The backing track certainly sounded very much like that of the PSB original. But the vocals were clearly not sung by Neil, although they still made use of the PSB song's lyrics.
- An instrumental segment of what was very obviously the original was subsequently (in early 2017) used in a spot for the Spanish mobile phone operator/wireless provider Movistar.
6. Love Is a Bourgeois Construct
The BFM News Network in France has repeatedly used the intro of the album version of this track as "bumper music" for its daily weather reports. Bumper music is specifically disqualified from inclusion in my list of Pet Shop Boys songs used in non-musical films and television shows. But BFM has also used the same segment of music in its August 2013 TV commercials for its news programming, which earns it a spot in this list instead.
7. Betrayed
A short excerpt from the opening instrumental portion of this song was allegedly used in an advertisement that ran in early 2017 on satellite/cable television for the "adult" network Miami TV. (Please note that this is second-hand information and I cannot vouch for its absolute veracity. But I don't see any reason for the regular site visitor who told me about this, and who says he is confident of the accuracy of his observation, to report a falsehood. Nevertheless, I must insist for legal reasons that this is an alleged and possibly erroneous report of a commercial use of this PSB song.)
British fashion house Burberry uses the Pet Shop Boys' famous rendition of this song in their 2017 Christmas TV/internet campaign—specifically a 30-second spot featuring supermodel Cara Delevingne and actor Matt Smith. And BBC One employed it in December 2021 as background music during a recurring TV commercial for Series 16 of its popular "reality" competition The Apprentice.
9. Heart
Not only the song but the Pet Shop Boys themselves appear in the Summer 2018 campaign for Dior Homme (the Christian Dior men's fashions line), of which at least one video advertisement had surfaced as early as mid-January of that year.
10. Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)
- This song was used in video ads first appearing in June 2019 promoting the release (scheduled for August) of the Netflix exclusive series The Naked Director, which concerns Toru Muranishi and the adult film industry in 1980s Japan. I don't know, however, whether the song appeared in the series itself.
- It was also used in a commercial for Allstate insurance that debuted toward the end (technically, post-game) of the Super Bowl LV broadcast of February 7, 2021. In the commercial, a guy is driving through the desert when the song comes on the radio. He starts singing along and then his car's "female" hood ornament comes to life and begins to sing as well. (Presumably he's got the brains, she—the car—has the looks, and now they're going to start saving lots of money with Allstate insurance.)
11. It's a Sin
- Trailers and TV commercials for the 2019 film Greed featured this song, though it doesn't appear in the film itself.
- Predictably, it can also be heard in promo spots for the 2021 British TV miniseries It's a Sin; as it turns out, the clip from the show used in this commercial is the only time during the series in which the song (as opposed to just its title) is actually used.
Plus a few borderline cases involving the same song:
Although the Pet Shop Boys' remake of this song hasn't yet itself been used in a TV ad (at least as far as I know), the fact that our musical heroes re-popularized it to such great effect has resulted in several blatant knockoffs:
- A British commercial for Ben's Bread (I'm not sure when it aired) altered the lyrics but otherwise performed an obvious takeoff on the song that was, both musically and "video-ally," very much in the "PSB style."
- In the mid-1990s, a ketchup commercial shown in Israel (where the PSB single proved extremely popular) was also a takeoff on the Boys' rendition and video, featuring children wearing similar costumes and helmets. This TV ad proved so successful that it's still fondly remembered today, roughly two decades later, and the Pet Shop Boys themselves are reportedly sometimes referred to jokingly in Israel as the "Ketchup Boys."
- A 2013 commercial for the Haifa West real-estate development, also shown in Israel, asks viewers to "Go west and join our new project," accompanied by a choir singing the song's chorus with an instrumental arrangement again in the "PSB style."
- A commercial that ran in the U.K. in 1998 and 1999 for Ambrosia rice pudding also employed the song using a very PSB-like arrangement. Interestingly, another TV ad for the same product used a takeoff on a different Village People song, "In the Navy," only this time closely following the original VP arrangement rather than mimicking the Pet Shop Boys. So clearly they had the PSB version of "Go West"—not the Village People original—in mind with the first ad.
- A 2015 Argentine commercial for Lucchetti pasta has music that's closely modeled on the PSB rendition of the song, right down to a lead vocalist who's an audio dead-ringer for Neil—only of course he's singing in Spanish.
- An obvious takeoff on the PSB version of "Go West" was used in a 2021 U.K. Highways Agency ad campaign on how drivers should behave on the road in case of a breakdown. The new lyrics began, "Go left! Indicators on. Go left! At the next junction.…" and continued in a similarly "automotive" vein.
It's also been noted—by the Pet Shop Boys themselves—that at times "soundalikes" of their songs have been used in commercials. As Chris has put it, "Quite often advertising people copy a record without it actually being the record.…" In other words, the advertising company changes the song just enough to avoid having to get permission to use it and pay royalties. This has happened with "Suburbia" (in a German beer commercial), "Left to My Own Devices" (in a British bank commercial), and the aforementioned "West End Girls" (in commercials for a British cinema chain and, as noted above, a soft drink).
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